Real

I am spending a lots of life second guessing life but it takes time.

I don't want to, but I live in systems that demand it. And I haven't managed to escape.
Yet.

I have to think 10 minutes into the future.

I am careful not to live in the past but I'm not allowed to live in the present. Which is usually okay by me because I don't really agree with living in the present. It hurts too many people. But that's another story.

When you are building and preparing, you're constantly sitting on a building site, you're constantly standing in rubble, in the rain.

You're constantly in danger of losing the bigger picture.

And even when you build your Trump towers, there's no million dollar windfall waiting for you.

Today, the most interesting thing I did was spent 45 minutes talking to a producer of an upcoming BBC programme.

Which was pleasant because she was dealing charmingly and energetically with the practical difficulties of living in the real world.

And that's where I live.

I don't protect myself from the outside world with marble and granite.

I don't retire to my inner circle, largely because they've long since abandoned me and my ideals.

I don't hide behind the infantry and I don't seek out a second row to protect me from reality.

I live on the front line. 

In a tin hat. 

And sometimes not even that.

I'm not saying anybody should care about that, and believe me I am used to the fact that they don't. They largely mock my choices.

But for whatever else they are. They are at least mine. 

But talking to somebody that I feel lives on the front line and that person being in the media .. that's irony.

Somebody dealing in facade turning out to have more reality than my own subject area should be improbable.

Because I'm a medic. Physician, if you know the difference. You probably don't.

Most of my peers have sold the real world for a supply of marble and granite and Le Creuset.

So I can't show you marble.I don't have any.

Any granite I have goes into the consultation. I don't have it on my living room floor.

And I won't even tell you where I buy my pots from.

I work hard to make my tiles interlock but they are the tiles of life, not of my cold new kitchen floor.

But there are voices...

There are voices out there that are real.

Voices like mine.

We just need to look beyond the obvious.

And don't be nervous. 

Because all that is waiting for you is reality.

It's only harsh when you're not used to it.